Remnant of Dust and Ghosts
by ShowMeYourFury
Summary: Ruby teaches Weiss how to play video games.


**Author's Notes:** Been thinking about this for months. I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

"Are you _still_ playing that game?" Weiss said as she entered Team RWBY's room.

Ruby and Yang, sprawled across their beds on opposite sides of the room, didn't look up from their scrolls.

"They haven't put the thing down since you left for lunch." answered Blake from her bed, underneath Yang's.

"Snitch." Yang muttered.

Weiss sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, a gesture that had become commonplace in the last few days. She closed the door behind her and moved to her bed, depositing her backpack full of books onto the floor. "Friday night, you were playing. All day yesterday, you were playing. I never even saw you two go to sleep last night, and then today you're still spending the whole day playing!" She grabbed hold of the edge of Ruby's bed and pulled herself upwards so that her head was level with her teammate's. "Isn't there something _else_ you could be doing with your time? Studying?" She twisted her head to glare at Yang. "Or training? We have tests coming up soon, you know!"

Yang rolled her eyes, the first sign that she'd even heard Weiss since the latter entered the room. "Relax, ice queen, it's just a game."

"Just a game that you've played for the last sixty hours straight!" Weiss caught Blake's eye and gave her a silent request for support.

But her faunus teammate shook her head, "Don't look at me, I've spent the whole weekend reading. I'm barely any better than the two of them."

"Ugh," Weiss groaned, "What is even so exciting about playing the same game over and over again?"

"It's not the same thing every time," Ruby said, eyes fixed on her screen, "there's lots of different challenges and puzzles, and new areas to explore and tons of enemies that are really hard to beat." She turned her scroll so Weiss could see her view of the screen. "See?"

Weiss squinted her eyes to try to pick out details on the small screen. She could see Ruby's avatar in the center of the screen, with a little bar of circular images beneath. A banner of words covered the right side, and a box in the bottom left of the screen was rapidly updating with new incoming messages. "I can't even tell what I'm seeing."

Ruby turned the scroll back. "There's a special event going on, so a lot of people are playing. Plus it's a double XP weekend, so Yang and I are trying to level up."

"Double XP? Level up? I don't know what those mean..."

There was a snort on the other side of the room. "What, have you never played a video game before, ice queen?" Yang teased.

Weiss' glare deepened. "I have _s_ _o_! I just choose to spend my _valuable time_ learning more important things than _irrelevant_ video game terms!"

Ruby sat up in her bed and stretched her back. "Why don't you come up and I'll show you how to play, Weiss? I think you're right and I need a break anyway."

"I suppose everything I just said about how they were a waste of time just went right over your head?"

Yang snorted again on the other side of the room. "You wouldn't last twenty minutes before you gave up and cried about how hard it was, Weiss."

An offended and competitive light flashed through Weiss's eyes. She gave a poorly disguised uncaring shrug and sighed. "Fine. Show me. It probably isn't very interesting and is _too easy_ anyway." She pulled herself up, with Ruby's help, onto the bed and sat beside her teammate. Ruby handed her her scroll and showed her how to hold her hands so she could reach all the controls easily. "Okay, I'm ready. Let's get this over with."

"Alright, so up here," Ruby pointed to the upper left corner of the screen and Weiss followed with her eyes. "that's your health bar. On the bottom are all your abilities. You can only use them every once in a while since my character class has a lot of really long cooldowns. Right now you're in a safe zone so if you want to get into combat you can fast-travel to another zone."

Weiss stared blankly at the screen, her face set in a frown as her brain tried to digest Ruby's words. A short moment later she said, "I have absolutely no understanding of half of what you just said."

Yang burst out laughing. Blake chuckled quietly, and Ruby tried to hide a big smile. "Yeah, sorry. That was a lot of technical stuff, I guess. Why don't we make you a new character and we can start at the beginning?"

"Hmph. Fine."

"Okay." Ruby took the scroll and spent a few minutes pushing buttons, then handed it back to Weiss. Yang dropped down from her bed and joined the two so she could watch. "So this is the new character screen. First you choose a class."

"What's a class?"

"It's like, umm..."

Yang cut in, "It's like choosing a weapon, or a fighting style. There's a ton of different kinds. You could use a sword or a bow, or choose a really fast class or one that is hard to hit." She took a deep breath. "Wow, I've never had to explain what a class is before. It's harder than I thought. Most people just kind of understand it automatically."

"Shut up." Weiss snapped, growing frustrated. She looked at the classes, scrolling through the different avatar representations until she stopped on one of a tall woman with a flowing cloak and wielding two short swords. It reminded her strongly of her elder sister, and she pointed at the screen. "I want to be that one."

Ruby and Yang peered closer. "A ranger, huh?" Yang said.

"What does that one do?"

"Rangers are usually stealthy assassins that can use swords or bows. They can fight but also are good at sneaking in to places and stealing things." Ruby said, but when Weiss didn't show any sign of understanding, she added, "Kind of like Blake."

"Oh, yeah," Yang nodded, "Blake would definitely be a ranger."

"Rangers don't steal, those are rogues." Blake said from her bed.

"You know what they're talking about, Blake?" Weiss asked, surprised.

Blake shrugged and turned the page of her book. "I've played before."

Yang's head swiveled. "Really? I didn't know you liked video games, Blakey,"

"Don't call me that."

Weiss' mouth twisted. She didn't like being the only one out of the loop. "So now what do I do?" There was a big button on the bottom of the screen that said 'Enter World'. "Do I push this?"

"Yup!" said Ruby as she squeezed closer to Weiss. "Then the game will show you a video that like, introduces the world and stuff, but I always skip it. Then there'll be a tutorial about how to use your abilities!"

Weiss gripped the scroll tighter and focused hard on the screen. "I'm ready." She wasn't going to let Yang make fun of her for losing the first fight. She skipped the video because Ruby said it wasn't important, and then a screen similar to what she'd seen when Ruby was playing faded up. Her avatar was in the center, but only a single circular icon was at the bottom of the screen. "Wait, what? Why do I only have one ability?"

"Because you're level one." Ruby explained, "You unlock more as you level up."

"What level are you guys?"

"I'm level sixteen," Yang said proudly, "but Ruby's level eighteen!"

"I told you two you were playing too much!" Weiss scowled at the screen. "How do I level up?"

"Okay, so, you level up by getting XP. Experience." Ruby pointed to a bar underneath the health bar in the upper left corner. "That's your XP bar. When it fills up you level up."

The bar was empty. "So how do I get experience?"

As though she were quoting something, Ruby said, "Defeating an opponent or completing a quest awards experience."

Weiss was starting to get frustrated. "Look, just show me how to beat enemies so I can catch up to you guys!"

"We've been playing all weekend, remember Weiss? You're not going to catch up to us any time soon." Yang climbed back onto her bed and resumed playing.

"Hmph. Just show me already!"

"Alright," Ruby took the scroll and began walking Weiss through the different controls, abilities, and – what were to Ruby, Blake, and Yang – the basics of video games. After a few minutes, she guided Weiss through the first tutorial combat.

When the small animated character – a simple gray wolf – fell to the ground and disappeared, a wide smile spread across Weiss' face. "I did it! Ruby, look, I did it!" She glanced at the XP bar. It was filled a quarter of the way with neon green. "I'm almost the next level!"  
"That's right," Ruby said, nodding placatingly, struggling to stifle giggles.

Weiss peered closer at the bar. "I need more though. How do I get more? Where are there other enemies?" Her nostrils flared. "Give me something else to _kill_."

"Umm, well, actually, killing random enemies is the _slowest_ way to level up."

Weiss blinked and looked up. "What? Really? Then tell me the fastest! I need to catch up with you guys!"

"I don't actually know the fastest way," Ruby said quietly.

Weiss flashed her a mild glare, "You're the highest level in the room and you don't know the fastest way to level up? You just don't want to tell me!"

"No, no. Weiss, no!" Ruby held her hands up, "There's just no 'fastest' way."

"She's right, Weiss," Yang tossed in, back to playing in her bed, "people just have their preferred ways of leveling."

Ruby nodded and pointed to Yang to try and convince Weiss. "Yeah!"

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Okay, well, what are the different ways? I thought you said I needed to defeat opponents or complete quests."

"Right, but there's a few ways to do it. I like to do dungeons and raids but Yang likes to PVP, and there's also-"

Weiss interrupted her, asking, "What in the world is 'pee-vee-pee'?"

"Player-versus-player." Yang answered. "Fighting other actual people in the game. You get a lot of experience if you win a match. It's a good way to make money too."

"Wait, there's _money_ in this game?" When Yang and Ruby both nodded, Weiss' mouth opened. "I had no idea this stupid game was so complicated." She returned her focus to the scroll's screen and set her jaw. "Keep going."

"So, like I was saying," Ruby continued, "there's also these things called 'quests', which are like challenges or puzzles or sometimes really simple things like deliveries. Those are the three best ways to level up, and get money I guess. The best thing about it, though, is that the game totally lets you choose however you want to play. You could do only dungeons, or only PVP, or only quests, or do some of each. It's really fun!"

"That does sound kind of fun..." Weiss began to concede, but then she frowned. "But it's still stupid and a waste of time!"

Ruby glanced across the room and met eyes with Yang. They smirked to each other, then Ruby said, "Alright then, I won't make you play it anymore." She held out her hand, "If you give me back my scroll I'll let you get back to more important things."

Weiss looked at Ruby's waiting hand and clutched the scroll jealously to her chest. "No! I'm not done learning yet! I need to catch up to you guys!"

Asking seriously this time, Ruby said, "Sure! I'll install it on your scroll so you can play, but can I have mine back? I was in the middle of a dungeon."

"Will my character be on my scroll?"  
"Umm, well," Ruby pointed at the device in Weiss' hands, "characters are linked to accounts, and that account is linked to my scroll, so..."

"You mean I'd have to start all over?" Weiss whined. "I can't do that, I'm already so far behind!"

Ruby's hopeful face fell. "Yeah, I guess you're right." Behind her, Yang and Blake shared a look and shook their heads. Both could see where this was going, knowing that Ruby would always give in to her partner. "I guess you can keep playing on mine..."

A deceptively innocent, practiced grin split Weiss' face. "Thanks, Ruby. I promise I won't keep it for too long." Then she returned her attention to the scroll and resumed playing.

Ruby sat beside Weiss on the bed, quietly observing at first, occasionally giving a few pointers, but, after several minutes of watching Weiss complete introductory quests and puzzles she herself had done countless times, grew bored. She looked for something to occupy her, turning first to her sister and Blake, but both were absorbed into their respective activities and offered no entertainment. Zwei, the team's unofficial and unsanctioned canine mascot, was snoozing peacefully on his ramshackle bed of history textbooks covered in sweatshirts and showed no interest in the toys Ruby waggled in his face. Running low on options, Ruby looked at the dorm room's desk, covered in incomplete homework and half-studied notes.

Not yet, she thought. She could find other things to do. Homework was _always_ the absolute _last_ resort.

Two hours later the dorm had been cleaned, the laundry had been washed, dried, folded, and put away, the training room had been visited, and Ruby exited the shower with her hair wrapped in a towel. But her boredom still hungered fiercely, and Weiss was still playing on her scroll.

Her notebook and dog-eared textbook seemed to giggle deviously as she took a seat at the desk. It was better than sitting and doing nothing, Ruby told herself. Taking a deep breath, she raised her pen and began studying.

She covered subject after subject, filled page after page, reviewed note after note.

When Ruby finally looked up from her notes, the world outside the enormous window on the back wall of the dorm room was dark, and moths and other night-time bugs fluttered aggressively against the exterior of the glass, clamoring for the light. Ruby stood from the desk, stretched, yawned, and crossed the room to close the curtains. The room was lit only by the small lamp on the desk and the bluish glow of the scrolls in Weiss's and Yang's hands. The two girls were still playing the game, apparently, and Blake, seemingly having no trouble reading in the dimness, still had her book held close to her face.

Her mind weighted with fresh knowledge, Ruby felt her eyelids drooping and sleepily declared, "I'm going to bed." She trudged to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, cleaned off her makeup, changed into her pajamas, then exited and made to climb into her bed.

Weiss still occupied the upper bunk, eyes glued to the scroll's screen.

"Weiss, I'm going to bed."

There was no response from her partner.

"Weiss, I'm really tired, can you move?"

"Five more minutes." Weiss mumbled.

Ruby rubbed her face with her hand. "What level are you now?"

"I'm almost level..." Weiss's eyes flicked to the top the screen, "...five."

Ruby blinked. "Only level five?" She could get to level eight in under two hours if she avoided distractions. Even more quickly, with the double XP bonus.

"Yes. I'm making rather good progress, I feel." A peek at the screen showed Weiss's avatar trapped behind a fence, jumping over and over without any success.

"Can I _please_ go to bed?"

"Five more minutes! Geez..."

"Okay," Giving in to her partner's stubbornness, Ruby instead climbed into Weiss's bed, curling up in the delightfully warm and comfortable sheets, and closed her eyes. "Goodnight everyone," she said, then quickly fell asleep.

…

Weiss's angry voice broke through her slumber and her dreams were instantly forgotten.

"Ruby!"

Conditioning from being repeatedly late and needing to be woken by her furious partner kicked in and Ruby's eyes flashed open as she catapulted herself upwards. "Breakfast!" The sunlight was blinding, and Ruby fumbled for the edge of her bed. "I'll be there in a second! Someone save me a seat!" Her reaching hand touched something, something that wasn't the wooden frame of her suspended bed, nor of Weiss's.

It felt like... grass.

Ruby peeked open an eye, confused. A field of short grass stretched in front of her, waving in a gentle wind. She closed her eye. "Was I snoring too loud again? Did you at least not put me in the courtyard this time?"

There was a frustrated grumble from behind her and to the left. "Ruby!"

She opened both eyes fully this time, holding a hand to her brow against the brightness. The grass was still there, glowing a healthy green in the sunlight, and a stand of bushy trees stood a couple dozen yards away. Beyond the forest short gray mountains met a cloudless blue sky. The cool air smelled sweet and fresh, and buzzed with the sound of excited insects and flirting birds. Three hawks circled in the sky, black dashes drifting on a waveless ocean. The breeze picked up, tickling her hair against her ears and pulling at the pants she wore.

Wait. Pants? Ruby looked down at herself.

She was not wearing her pajamas. Instead, her chest and arms were covered by a puffy white blouse with criss-crossing leather strips at the cuffs, with a brown corset hugging her stomach and ribs. Light gray pants hung closely but loose over her legs, cinched by a thick black belt. The pant legs disappeared into black leather boots that were strapped to her feet. But not everything she wore was new and unfamiliar; her red cloak was clasped about her neck with a silver rose pin.

She felt... confused, certainly, but also a sense of wondrous curiosity and amazement. What was this _place_?

"Ruby!"

Ruby turned at the call of her name. A girl was standing there – she looked awfully similar to Weiss.

The girl was dressed in a flowing blue hooded robe that enveloped her thin frame. Through a gap in the robe Ruby could see an embroidered white buttoned shirt and a white cinch that held up a long skirt colored the same blue as the robe. White cloth shoes shone out from the green grass. White wrist wraps poked into view from the deep sleeves of the robe as the girl crossed her arms.

Her neck and collar were exposed in the well of the robe's enormous hood, ringed by a silver necklace. Her jaw was exceptionally pointed – especially with the way she was scowling – her nose straight and thin, and her eyes large and a piercing blue. She had dark eyebrows, but long, almost sparkling white hair that hung straight and pooled in the hood behind her head.

But what drew Ruby's eyes were the two glimpses of pale flesh that protruded through the curtain of hair; the girl had pointed ears.

"Ugh," the girl jutted her head and shouted, " _Ruby!_ "

Ruby's attention snapped from the ears to the sharp blue eyes, and she blinked twice. Squinting, she asked, "Weiss?"

The girl's eyes made a full rotation around. "Of course! Who _else_ would I be, you dolt?!"

The use of 'dolt' confirmed to Ruby that it was, in fact, Weiss who stood before her, pointed ears or not. "Why are you dressed like that?" she asked, "Why am I dressed like this? Where are we? Why do your ears look like that?"

" _I_ don't know, I- my ears?"

"Yeah."

"What's wrong with my ears?"

"Are they real?"

Weiss's face looked like Ruby had just asked the stupidest question in the world. "Of course they're real, what kind of question is that?"

"Well, um... touch them."

"What?"  
"Touch your ears. You know," Ruby rubbed the ends of her ears. "like that."

Weiss rolled her eyes again. "Ugh, whatever." She reached up and pinched the tops of her ears with her finger and thumb. "There. I don't know what that proves to you but-" Her eyes widened the further her fingers followed along the edge of her ears. "What the- why are they like that?!" Her voice rose in panic. "What the hell is going on?!"

"I don't know!" Ruby said, feeling more excited than worried. "Are the others here? Maybe they know!"

Weiss was still feeling her ears, bending, twisting, and pulling on the stiff flesh, her face a mask of confused disgust. "I don't know! I woke up here and you were over there on the ground and I just knew you had something to do with this so I went to get you up!"

"Okay, well, hey," Ruby stepped forward and gently moved Weiss's hands away from her ears and back down to her sides, "let's not totally freak out yet, right? Let's see if we can find Yang and Blake."

Meeting Ruby's eyes, Weiss took a deep breath to calm herself. "Right. This is probably all that idiot's fault anyway." She sniffed and took another deep breath. Ruby let go of her arms, and Weiss rolled up her oversized sleeves only for them to fall back down to her wrists. "They've got to be around here somewhere."

"Yeah." Ruby took another, more analytic look around where she and Weiss stood. The grass spread out around them in a large circle, eventually thinning as it met the wall of a surrounding forest. The land was flat, with nothing to offer them a vantage point. "We need to get higher up."

"I think I see a building over there," Weiss said, pointing to an area of forest to their left. Ruby looked closely at the area she indicated; the trees were thinner there, and through the branches and leaves she could just barely see what appeared to be a dark stone wall. "Maybe that's where they are?"

"Nice spot, Weiss! Let's go!" Ruby took off at a skipping jog, laughing at Weiss's frustrated calls of her name and requests to wait.

The wall, when the pair reached it, was revealed to be not a building, but a part of a series of old ruins. Broken bricks of gray, gritty stone lay haphazardly abandoned in the grass that filled in the space between the forest and the wall, moss and dirt clinging to their cracks. A fallen column, twenty feet long, was slowly being consumed by vines. Weiss and Ruby minded their step as they cautiously approached the ruins. The wall itself was curved, only half of what would have been a complete building still standing, the rest scattered or destroyed. Any wooden supports or decorations had either rotted or burned long ago. A circular floor made of hundreds of small bricks marked the full dimensions of the ancient building, but the only indications of the buildings purpose came from four stone plinths that stood resolutely in the shadow of the wall.

"A temple, maybe?" Weiss suggested as the pair inspected the ruin.

"Looks like it." Ruby put her hand against the wall. The stone was cold, despite being in the sun. "Kind of reminds me of our first day at Beacon. Remember those ruins?"

"I more remember the giant Nevermore that nearly crushed us with them," Weiss said dryly, with a superstitious glance at the sky.

"Ha ha, yeah." Ruby approached the plinths. Why four, she wondered, peering at them. Perhaps there had been more when the temple was complete. She inspected the chiseled stone, feeling her fingers along the surface. Each had a pattern engraved into the top, but time and weather had worn most of the detail away, leaving shallow, smooth channels where there had once been distinct carvings. One had the faint outline of a heart, another of a spiral, a third of a flame, and the fourth of a twelve-pointed star. At least, that's what they looked like. Ruby couldn't tell what they were actually meant to be. She wished she could have seen them before they had been left to deteriorate.

"Ruby!" Weiss's call made her look up from the plinths. "I heard something. In the forest."

Ruby stiffened at the tension in Weiss's voice. "What did it sound like?"

"Something. Something moving."

"Could it be, like, a squirrel or a rabbit?"

Weiss shook her head. "Bigger." Her implication was clear.

Ruby moved to stand beside her partner. "Where?" Weiss pointed to a patch of dense bushes several yards away. Ruby stared at the area and listened closely, and heard a distinct, rhythmic crunching. "We can take it." she said, lowering her voice to a whisper.

"We don't have our weapons."

"So? We'll beat it with our bare hands!" Ruby flashed a confident grin and raised her hands in a mock fighting stance.

Weiss rolled her eyes but did the same, struggling with her sleeves. "This stupid robe..." she muttered to herself.

The pair waited silently, eyes locked onto the edge of the forest, as the crunching grew louder and closer. Ruby clenched and unclenched her hands, impatient, and found herself wishing she had her scythe despite what she had said to Weiss. It had been a long time since she'd had to fight anything without it. Then, after agonizing seconds of nervous waiting, the closest visible bushes began to wiggle. Ruby and Weiss both held their breath, preparing themselves for what was about to appear. The dense bundle of leaves parted, and revealed-

-Yang. The tall girl shoved her way through the bush, grunting as she fought against the stiff branches. "I hate forests, and I hate bushes! All these stupid leaves and sticks and thorns get _stuck_ in my hair and take _forever_ to get out!" she yelled as she emerged. The last time Ruby had seen her sister she had been dressed in her workout clothes, but now she wore brown boots that came up to her knees, dark brown pants tied by an orange cloth belt at her waist, and a loose orange shirt that almost looked more like a jacket that was too large for her. A tangerine scarf was bunched around her neck, with the excess length dangling over her back like coattails. Her hair, however, was just as radiantly yellow and wild as the night before, though speckled with bits of brown from bark fragments and leaves.

Once she was free of the woods Yang immediately began plucking at the tangled twigs she'd gathered in her long blonde hair as she had struggled against the bushes, but then stopped and was still. "Who's there?" she called, dropping quickly into a fighting stance.

Weiss and Ruby glanced at each other. Ruby recovered first and said, "Yang?"

Her sister's shoulders dropped and her head tilted sideways. "Ruby? And that's _Weiss_ next to you?"

"Oh my gosh, Yang, look at her ears!" Ruby said suddenly and excitedly, waving a finger towards her partner's head.

Yang turned her head, squinted her eyes, then chuckled. The chuckling turned into laughter, which in turn became loud, breathy guffaws that had the blonde bent over clutching her knees for support. Weiss gave Ruby a furious, icy glare that communicated more than any amount of angry words could; Ruby smiled regardless.

"Oh man," Yang said between gasps, "if you think _that's_ good, wait'll you see _this_!" She twisted to face the forest and shouted, "Come on out, Blake, I found Ruby and Weiss!"

After a quiet moment Blake's voice crept out from the trees, "...No."

"Come on, Blakey!"

"No. And don't call me that."

"You can't just stay in there forever."

"Yes I can. I live here now. The trees are my home. I've forsaken the light and will spend the rest of my life in the dark recesses of this forest. Please go on without me. It's alright, I like it here. Really."

Weiss and Ruby followed the exchange with fascination, each trying to imagine the reason Blake refused to leave the woods.

After a few more minutes of convincing from Yang, there was a deep, disappointed sigh from behind the bushes. "Fine, I'm coming out. Nobody say anything."

The thick bushes shook, and then Blake appeared from behind the wall of green. Her dress, unlike Ruby's, Weiss's, or Yang's, looked completely appropriate and ordinary – for Blake, at least. Black shirt, black arm wraps, and black pants that seemed to blend into thigh-high black leather boots. The only two peculiarities were the long white cloak that hung around her shoulders, and the lack of the bow that was usually perched at the top of her head. Her faunus ears were curved low, hugging the crown of her head, nearly invisible amongst the loose waves of black hair.

Ruby failed to see why Blake looked so embarrassed. But then something twitching behind her teammate caught her eye.

A tail, black-furred and wriggling.

Blake covered her face with her hands as Ruby and Weiss stared at her new appendage. "I know, it's really-"

"Cute." Weiss blurted. All eyes turned to her. "What? It is." she said in response to the smirk on Yang's face. "It's cute."

Yang turned back to Blake. "Well, there ya go, Blakey! Weiss has delivered a verdict. Your tail," she couldn't suppress a quick snort, "is cute."

"Can you control it?!" Ruby asked in an excited gasp, walking forward. She stooped to get a closer look. "Can you like, pick up stuff? Does it help you jump places like on real cats? What does it feel like? _Can I touch it_?!"

"I- I- I-" Blake stammered, pivoting on one foot to stay just beyond Ruby's grasp.

" _I'm going to touch it!"_ Ruby pounced, rubbing the tail between her fingers. "Whoa, it's really soft."

Weiss moved to join her. "Hey! I want to touch it too!"

"Me too!" Yang said, bending down.

Blake quickly scooped her tail out of Ruby's hands and backed away from her teammates. "No more touching." When faced with their disappointed frowns, she said, "Doesn't it bother you?"

"No, we still like you," Ruby offered, smiling.

"That's not what I mean! I mean, don't you wonder _why_ I have a tail? Don't you wonder why we're dressed like this, or are in _this_ place instead of in our beds in Beacon?" Her tone became serious, and, Ruby felt, frightened. "Where _are_ we?"

The girls were silent, for none could offer an answer. The wind was cold now. The rustling trees were whispering evil secrets. It felt like a cloud had crossed the sun. The world – this new, foreign world – suddenly seemed too huge and unfamiliar. And that made it feel dangerous. The four instinctively crept together and kept careful eyes on their surroundings.

Weiss was the next to speak, in a careful whisper, "What do you guys remember? About how we got here?"

"I was the last awake," Blake said. "You were in Ruby's bed, Ruby was on the floor, and Yang was snoring."  
"I was not!"

"Yes you were. And then I... I had a weird dream. There was a... a-"

"A door." Weiss finished.

And then Ruby remembered.

The door. The hallway of unbreachable blackness, of perfect, blinding dark, and then the excruciating brilliance of light that clawed between the cracks of an impossible doorway. The rectangular outline was scorched into her mind – she could see it clearly now, behind her eyes – and then it _opened_ , the pure whiteness flooding the hallway. And there had been a voice, a soft, haunting whisper.

And it had said, " _I missed you, Ruby._ "

"Ruby?"

Ruby blinked; the others were looking at her, concern on their faces. "So we all saw the door?" Her teammates nodded. "What did the voice say to you?"

The three shared glances, then looked back at Ruby. Yang said slowly, "We didn't hear a voice, Ruby."

"Oh." Ruby looked at the ground, questions floating in her mind.

"What did it say?" Blake asked her.

"Hmm?"  
"The voice you heard. What did it say to you?"

"It said... It said it missed me."

The silence returned.

Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang huddled into an even tighter square, each asking themselves the same question:

What was this strange, unusual place?

And how could they get home?

Then, unexpectedly, Yang started laughing. The sound was so surprising that Weiss and Ruby nearly left the ground, and Blake's hands rose to her chin as fists. But the shock quickly waned and the three girls turned to their teammate, their expressions mixed. It took a moment for Yang's laughter to die down enough for her to notice, and she breathily apologized, "S-Sorry guys, I – ha! - I just figured it out! It's so obvious!"

"Please, by all means, explain it to us, then." Weiss growled through her teeth.

Yang gasped to settle her giggling and wiped tears from her eyes. "It's just like in those shows Blake watches!" Ruby and Weiss glanced at Blake, but the faunus shrugged. Yang paused, sucking in her lips as she looked between the girls. "Really, no one else has noticed?"

" _What is it,_ you big blonde lug?!" Weiss shouted, her arms thrown over her head as her impatience finally took over.

Yang smiled wide and said,

"We're _in_ the _game_."

* * *

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